


Life is Just a Fairy Tale

by druscilla



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Drabble Collection, Drama, Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/druscilla/pseuds/druscilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I asked my Tumblr followers to send me Disney movies and I wrote Peterick drabbles inspired by them.  I am going to put each one in this story as a separate chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lilo and Stitch

Pete had been watching the same movie every night to fall asleep. If he didn’t fall asleep the first time, he would watch it again. Patrick recognized the name, but he hadn’t seen it. And at the end of the week, he finally made Pete shower and then go to bed upstairs instead of where he’d been nesting on the couch downstairs.

“That movie again?” Patrick asked, trying to keep his voice even.

“Please?” Pete asked, the desperation evident in his voice. “I need to, Trick. It helps me sleep.”

The younger boy nodded. Whatever got Pete to sleep, he supposed. “Okay.”

Pete snuggled into his side and Patrick realized immediately why the boy was drawn to the movie. The opening scene had Pete written all over it. But the second scene was all him, too. “So which one are you?” Patrick asked finally.

Pete squired happily, glad the other boy understood. But then he frowned. He hadn’t ever broken the two characters apart to figure out which one he was. But he had to be one, right? Because Patrick was the other one. Right?

He didn’t talk for the rest of the movie and when the credits started to roll, Patrick kissed his forehead. “Are you okay?”

“I think I’m both of them,” Pete said in a small voice, sounding scared.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Patrick told him, squeezing him tighter.

Pete didn’t like that. “But … but then who are you?”

Patrick laughed. “Nani. Obviously. Someone’s got to take care of you.”

The older boy seemed content with that answer, letting Patrick give him one more kiss before he started the movie over and let his eyes close.


	2. Cinderella

Patrick had to get out of there. He ran, pushing through the crowd of people. He thought he might have heard a voice calling his name, but he couldn’t be sure over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears and his gasped breaths. Once he pushed his way outside, the night air was a shock to his lungs and he almost tripped and it stabbed his insides like daggers. 

And then he did trip, over an untied shoelace, barely catching himself against the side of the porch and somehow managing to slip his entire left foot out of his shoe as he did so. He didn’t have the strength to remedy his situation at that point. He just fell into the corner, legs splayed out in front of him, trying not to think about how cold he was.

The front door opened and closed. Patrick looked up. It was Pete. The older boy looked at him for a moment, a serious expression on his face that Patrick couldn’t quite figure out. “It’s fucking freezing,” he said finally, taking a step and bumping the younger boy’s discarded shoe with his foot. 

He bent down to scoop it up and then sat down opposite Patrick on the ground, grabbing the boy’s foot (clad only in a sock) and slipping the shoe back on. “It’s midnight anyway. Wanna get out of here and grab food on the way back?”

Patrick shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

“Or I could just let you run away.”

The younger boy shook his head. “No. I don’t want to turn into a pumpkin.”

Pete raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind,” Patrick mumbled.


	3. Atlantis: The Lost Empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write Patrick as Milo, using this inspiration.

Patrick was a disaster. He had spilled coffee on himself on the way to the gig and had no time to change. Fortunately it had dried, but the stains remained. He was nervous getting on stage and nervous talking to the crowd. He dropped his first pick and had to immediately grab a second from the mic stand.

A boy with dark hair leaned forward from the table he was sitting at in the back. He was intrigued and when the nervous mess in front of him finally started to sing, his fingers dancing on the strings, the boy with the dark hair stood up and moved to the back of the crowd. He stood for the rest of the set and then took his seat again, waiting for the boy to appear from the backroom so he could follow him around the room with his eyes.

After it was all over, the boy with the dark hair found the disaster outside, trying to sell homemade demos and having no luck of it. Pete pulled a twenty out of his pocket and pressed it in the kid’s hands. “No change.”

“But I–”

“Oh, shut up,” Pete snapped. “If you carried yourself half as well as you sing you’d be in good shape. Now follow me.”

Patrick stared at the older boy like he’d lost his mind. “Follow you where?”

Pete glared at him. “Fucking Atlantis. What do you care? Is there something better for you here?”


	4. Peter Pan

“To die would be an awfully big adventure.”

“No,” Patrick said immediately, looking up from the notebook he was writing in. He frowned at Pete and shook his head. “No.”

“It’s just a quote.”

“Well, it’s a bad one.”

Pete got out of the bed he had been splayed out on and climbed into Patrick’s, pressing their knees together as he sat down across from the other boy. “It’s okay. I’m not … getting inspiration from it, or anything.”

Patrick sighed and pulled his glasses off to rub at his eyes. “You make it too easy to worry about you, Pete.”

The older boy tugged the glasses out of his hand and pushed them up his own nose, leaning in to kiss Patrick softly on the mouth. “I do believe in fairies, I do, I do.”


	5. Frozen

Pete ran. Pete’s feet hit the pavement and the door slammed behind him. He was already getting into his car and twisting the keys in the ignition, but the time Patrick pushed through the crowd to follow him. He watched the lights take off into the darkness and he stood there in the cold for a moment, before he turned and walked by into the warmth, letting the door close behind him. He still felt the chill long after he’d been inside.

Pete didn’t come home that night. Patrick was in his car, first thing in the morning, driving the place he knew the boy would be. Pete called in the Fortress, mainly because if he wanted to keep something out, he could hide in the basement and be free. There was no internet signal down there and the television wasn’t hooked up to cable, so he could only entertain himself with movies and music.

Sure enough, when Patrick got there, he could hear the faint sounds of whatever “lullaby” the older boy had playing. The garage code had been changed. The front and back doors were deadbolted. 

Clearly Patrick was one of the things Pete wanted to keep out today. But that wasn’t about to happen.

—

“How the hell did you get in here?” Pete snapped, eyes popping open as the music turned off. He didn’t need to ask who it was. He knew. He could feel it in his blood.

“If your neighbors call the cops about someone climbing in the window, that was me.”

“I left a window open?”

“No, I broke one.”

“You broke … you broke.” Pete laughed, an almost hysterical shriek escaping his lips. Then he was crying and Patrick was holding him. “You broke,” he kept whispering.

He cried himself out and Patrick helped him upstairs and into his bed, tugging off shoes and the green hoodie. “You have got to quit doing this to yourself, baby. You make yourself sick when you bottle it up.”

“You broke my window,” Pete whispered, half asleep.

“You’re breaking my heart,” Patrick whispered back, knowing the other boy couldn’t hear it.


	6. Aristocats

“Well, just take your sister to the bathroom while I get the drinks and come right back, okay?” Patrick said to the ten year old. “And wash your hands!” he called after them as they ran toward the back corner of the coffee shop, giggling. He shook his head and waited for the person in front of him to finish ordering.

He barely noticed the guy who got in line next to him, until he felt someone pinch his elbow. “I like your shirt.”

Patrick turned and met eyes with a dark haired boy who was a few years older than him, with brown eyes and too many tattoos to count. “Thanks,” he said, turning back to the counter as the guy in front of him finished order. “Two small strawberry smoothies and a large dark brew with cream please. And a blueberry muffin,” he added as an afterthought, knowing the two girls would complain they were hungry as soon as they sat down.

He moved to the left after he paid, heard the dark haired boy order something with caramel in it, and then those brown eyes were staring at him again. “I like your face, too,” he said.

Patrick had to fight his laughter. Did that line really work? “I’ve had it all my life,” he said, smiling to fight his laughter.

“Lucky,” the boy said as Patrick heard the distinct giggles of two girls.

“I like your face, too, Daddy,” the oldest said, giving the man hitting on her father the same look she gave her father when he tried to convince her she would need math later on in life. 

Patrick lifted his eyes to look at the dark-haired boy who was trying to recover gracefully and failing. “You’re … you, yeah, I’m gonna stop making an ass, er, idiot of myself now, sorry.”

“Two strawberry smoothies and a large coffee with cream!” the girl yelled from the end of the counter. 

Patrick’s two girls ran to the end of the counter, squealing with excitement, while their father looked at the boy with the tattoos, a smile twisting the corners of his lips. “Well, I’m gonna go over here with my face and my kids now.”

“I still like your face,” the boy said quietly.

“It likes you, too.” Patrick mumbled as he walked away. He was sitting in a booth and scolding Natalie for dripping smoothie all over the table when the napkin fluttered into his lap. He heard the door shut and saw the boy with the dark hair walking to his car through the windows. 

My face wants to take your face to dinner. Bring your kids so they can make fun of me and it won’t be awkward. - Pete 

When Patrick flipped the napkin over, there was a phone number on the back. He smiled.


	7. Mulan

Pete sneaks up behind Patrick while he’s on his laptop, moving his lips close to the other boy’s ear before he softly starts to sing. “Let’s get down to business.”

Patrick rolls his eyes heavenward. “Pete, please. I’m trying to–”

“To defeat the Huns?”

“Pete.”

“Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?”

Patrick sighs, but he’s struggling to hide his smile as the next line slides from his lips, almost against his will. “You’re the saddest bunch I’ve ever met, but you can bet before we’re through.”

Pete’s lips pressed against his cheek and Patrick could feel his smile as he finished, “Mister, I’ll make a man out of you.”

The younger boy pulled the older in for a kiss, a real one, on the lips, his hands tugging on a belt loop of Pete’s jeans. “You’re such an idiot.”

“Your idiot.”


	8. The Princess and the Frog

Patrick loved the jazz music. It was the reason he had watched the movie in the first place. Well, that and Pete really hadn’t given him much choice in the matter. But he hadn’t argued when he found out it was jazz.

They had to run out the first time they watched it and hadn’t made it through to the ending. So Patrick wasn’t expecting the tears the second time he watched it. He tried to wipe them away when he heard the front door bang open and closed, steps heavy on the stair.

But Pete knew, probably before he even got into the room. He took Patrick’s chin in his hand and kissed him on both cheeks and his forehead and the tip of his nose. “What is it baby?” he asked before his eyes fixed on the screen and a look of understanding swept over his features. “Oh, yeah. This part’s really sad, isn’t it?”

“Evangeline,” Patrick choked out stupidly and Pete kissed him again, squishing in next to him on the couch and wrapping both arms around him.

“It’s okay,” Pete promised, pointing to the screen as the second star appeared. “See? They’re together now. They’re happy.”

Patrick sniffled. “But he died.”

“Oh, baby, we all die when we fall in love. It’s how we’re born again.”


	9. The Nightmare Before Christmas

“I am Jack’s lament,” Pete says quietly to himself as the opening notes start on the screen. Patrick gives him a sharp look, but he doesn’t notice it, his wide eyes glued to the screen as his lips move with the words, barely whispering.

The electricity fills him up as the song goes and and he’s a great fucking conductor. Patrick watches as his body fills up, his hands starting to move, fingers dancing in their own way to the music. His voice gets a little louder until he’s proclaiming to the room of his royal lineage. Patrick can’t tear his eyes away.

And then the song’s over and the electricity has blown a fuse, from the way Pete sinks back into the couch, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment. Patrick leans in to brush the hair out of his eyes and kiss his forehead. “We can live like Jack and Sally if we want to,” he murmurs.

Pete’s eyes open and he gives a small smile. “I want to.”


	10. Lady and the Tramp

“No,” Patrick said, shaking his head. 

“But Trick,” Pete began, “I really–”

“No, it’s not sanitary.” 

The older boy crossed his arms. “I shove my fucking tongue in your ass and you won’t share a plate of spaghetti with me?”

Patrick’s face was instantly red and his eyes dropped to his hands. “N-No . . it’s not … oh fine!” he snapped, throwing his hands in the air and glaring at the other boy. “Are you happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Pete said with a smile. “And I want you to sing too.”

“Pete, I can’t sing with my mouth full.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”


	11. Aladdin

Pete never felt right around those people. He always ended up being too loud and too flashy and too much just trying to keep up with the circles he thought they were making. By the end of the night, he was fucking exhausted from the dance.

Patrick watched him all night, trying not to sigh and trying not to ruin his intricate footwork. The hotel was right next door and he half carried/half walked the older boy back to their room. Pete’s eyes were hardly open, but he managed to pressed his lips to Patrick’s neck in a sloppy kiss. “I’m glad I don’t have to pretend with you.”

“You don’t have to pretend with anyone,” Patrick told him, but he knew it was beyond the point. Once they were inside, he got the older boy in bed and took his shoes and tie off. He didn’t bother with the rest of his clothes. 

He turned the television on while he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. The movie was about halfway done, but he knew the song that was playing when he came out of the bedroom. He slipped under the covers and pulled Pete’s head into his lap, stroking the older boy’s hair.

He was half asleep, but he made a small noise and buried his face deeper into Patrick’s thighs as he heard the notes work their way from the back of the boy’s throat.

“But when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear, that now I’m in a whole new world with you.”


	12. Up

Pete felt empty. No, he didn’t even feel empty. He just was empty. There was nothing left to feel. He looked up at the sky and a single balloon floated across it. It wasn’t okay. Tears stung his eyes and he hated himself for feeling anything. There was no reason for it anymore.

He walked through the city, going anywhere but home. Home was as empty as he was. There was no meaning in it anymore. He wasn’t ready to go home and see the two empty chairs, one that would remain that way until God knew when.

Eventually it started to get dark and he ran out of choices. His feet dragged up the steps as he pulled his keys out and started to twist them in the door. A noise in the darkness startled him and he turned to see a dog sitting in the corner of his porch, clearly trying to get away from the cold. It gave a small hopeful wag of it’s tail and Pete felt something. He wasn’t sure what. 

But he left the door open for a second and the dog followed him in, immediately going to Patrick’s chair and turning around in front of it before laying down. And when Pete fell to the floor and finally cried, the dog sat next to him and caught all the tears in its coat without complaint.


	13. Tangled

Pete could do it himself of course, but he made these happy little noises in the back of his throat when Patrick did it. His eyes smiled brighter than his mouth could and he did this little wiggle with his hips that made the mattress squeak, depending on how nice the beds in the hotel were.

“It’s getting so long,” Patrick said, running the hairbrush through the black locks. He twisted a strand around his finger and Pete shoulder’s did a cute little twist that made the younger boy kiss them through the cotton shirt. “Are you going to cut it soon?”

Pete shook his head, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t like to talk when Patrick was brushing his hair. He just liked to sit there and glow in the feeling of someone taking care of him. It wasn’t like Patrick didn’t take care of him literally everyday, but it was hard for Pete to want it. He always wanted this.

“Well, I like it long,” Patrick continued, moving the brush again. “You look beautiful with long hair.”

—

There was hardly anything to brush anymore, but Pete still liked Patrick to do it sometimes. It usually ended with just fingers, stroking through the now bleach-blonde locks while the older boy made the same happy noises he always had. 

“You told me I look beautiful with long hair once,” he said, not so scared of talking anymore when he was sharing moments with Patrick. He knew he was safe when he came out of them now.

“You look beautiful always,” Patrick told him. “Especially when you’re not hiding behind your hair.”


	14. The Little Mermaid

Pete’s eyes slowly opened. The stark whiteness of the walls nearly blinded him at first and he squinted against it, until he could make out the figure sitting on the edge of his bed. “Trick,” he whispered, holding out his hand.

The other boy took it immediately, stroking the hair out of Pete’s face and looking at him with a mixture of concern and relief. He didn’t say anything, just lifted the other boy’s hand to his lips to brush a kiss against the knuckles. 

Pete could remember flashes of things. Of darkness and a tunnel and wanting to get out and not knowing what to do. He could remember tears and screaming at himself and a handful of pills and … and calling Patrick. His eyes widened as it hit him like a ton of bricks – what he had tried to do, what he had said over the phone. He didn’t remember anything after he hung up the phone and laid down on his couch.

“I’m sorry,” Pete whispered and Patrick nodded, tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” the older boy repeated, more forcefully.

Patrick still didn’t say anything, just continued to move his head in the affirmative while he wiped the tears off his cheeks.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

The younger boy hesitated for a second before patting his throat. 

“You lost your voice?”

Patrick shook his head and patted his throat again, then pointed to Pete.

The older boy woke up from the dream screaming. Patrick was shaking him awake in the hotel bed. “Pete, Pete, it’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay, I’m here.”

Arms grasped at Patrick desperately in the dark. He gasped for breath against the pain in his throat and then he stared into Patrick’s eyes. “Say it again.”

“I’m here, Pete. You’re fine,” the younger boy repeated soothingly, brushing the hair off his forehead. Pete buried himself in the sound and made Patrick sing to him until he fell back asleep.

He was never going to let the other boy lose his voice for him.


	15. Hercules

Patrick watched from the back as they all ran their hands over Pete, so to speak. He watched the way their eyes took bites out of him and their hips turned toward his, whether they realized it or not. And he couldn’t blame them because he knew how fucking golden Pete was, but it was all so cheap. Why couldn’t Pete see that?

He was grabbing another drink when he felt a hand on his back, only for a moment, and then Pete was next to him, ordering a shot and a double. “Fucking fuck,” he hissed to Patrick. “These people. I know we have to go to these things but what fucking good does it to to have a one man fucking parade?” He sounded overly angry and he drank the alcohol way too quickly, but it didn’t matter.

They still took bites out of him all night.

—

Pete was sitting on the edge of his bathtub, his jeans rolled up so he could stick his feet in the inch of water he had run. He’d made a bad decision the night before. He’d run, but he’d tripped and it had caught up with him. He could hear Patrick knocking on the door, but he didn’t think he had the strength to stand so he just ignored it.

After fifteen minutes of knocking and pleading, the threats started and Pete finally forced him to stand up and twist the knob. It seemed to take all his strength and he fell into Patrick when the door opened.

“Everyone just wants a piece of me.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re the only one.”

“You’re too good for this shit.”

“I’m not good enough until they say so.”

“Whose they?”

“I don’t fucking know.”


	16. Beauty and the Beast

Pete was bad at being in love. He knew that. He was a wreck and he hated himself, so how was he ever supposed to learn to love someone? The only people he had ever loved were his family and he knew he hadn’t even done that right.

But Patrick. Oh, Patrick was perfect. Patrick was beauty personified and an archangel walking on earth. Pete had to be able to do something to show Patrick how much he loved him. Maybe that would make Patrick forget how terrible he was at the whole thing.

The night before he’d yelled for fifteen minutes and none of it had been Patrick’s fault. The younger boy had tried to be understanding and then he’d yelled back and they’d gone to sleep in separate beds with the same tears on their cheeks.

Pete pounded the last nail into the wall and then turned back to the bookshelves and the boxes next to them. They’d been in the basement for months, but Pete knew that basements were supposed to be places you hid and not places for the things you loved. He checked the time on his phone. He only had an hour before Patrick got back.

“Please tell me this isn’t some elaborate ruse for sex,” Patrick teased as his boyfriend lead him up the stairs. But when he saw the look on Pete’s face, he fell silent, anticipation quickening his pace. He wrapped his arms around the older boy’s waist from behind as he opened the guestroom door.

Or what had been the guestroom door. 

Patrick gasped aloud as his arms fell to his sides and he stepped inside. “You did this for me?” he asked, turning to look at Pete. All of his instruments were upstairs. His guitar was on the stand and his keyboard was hooked up. His albums from the basement were on the bookshelf and Pete had hung up a picture of them. There was a desk and a stack of blank sheet music sitting in one corner. Pete had even plugged in a phone charger.

“I want you to know I love you,” Pete told Patrick as his fingers ran over the keyboard.

The younger boy turned to him. “Pete, of course I know you love me.”

“I know I’m bad at it.”

Patrick moved toward him, taking both of the boy’s hands in his. His eyes were soft and so were his lips, when they pressed against Pete’s chest, right over his heart. “You’re the only one I want. We’ll do better.”


	17. The Lion King

Pete didn’t expect it. It was raining a little that day and he spilled a glass of water that morning. Both could have been bad omens, but they would have been wrong. He got the mail, he took a shower, he ordered Thai food for lunch. He called his son when he knew he would be home from preschool, he watched a documentary on the History Channel, and he drank a beer. He was getting up to decide what he wanted for dinner when he heard the knock on the door.

He wasn’t expecting anyone and only a few people knew the code to get to the door from the gate, so he sighed and walked down the stairs, wondering what mess he was about to find himself in.

When he opened the door, he dropped the glass bottle he was holding in his hand. It shattered, but he barely heard it.

Eyes widened, like he’d seen a ghost. Pete’s hand reached forward to touch the boy there and make sure he was real. “’Trick?”

He received a shaky smile in return. “Hi. I’m home.”

_“The king has returned.”_


	18. Sleeping Beauty

Patrick pressed his foot harder to the accelerator, darting in between cars and not bothering to wave his hand in apology when he cut someone off going for the exit. It didn’t matter. There couldn’t have possibly been one person in the world who needed to get somewhere as badly as he did right now. The world was going to have to bend to him for fucking once.

He slammed on the brakes so hard when he parked that he almost hit his chin on the steering wheel. He shoved his keys in his pocket as he slammed the car door and ran inside. He didn’t bother with the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time to get to the fourth floor.

Half a minute of conversation at the counter and then they were walking, way too slowly for Patrick’s liking. Once the door opened, however, he wished they could walk down the hallway forever.

Pete looked helpless in the bed, an IV hooked up to his arm and his tattoos look strange underneath the hospital gown. His eyes were closed and Patrick wasn’t sure if that was because he was in a coma or because he was sleeping. The message had been vague. He hadn’t needed details. He’d only needed Pete.

He sat in the chair next to the bed and tried not to cry. He held the boy’s still hand in his and waited. One hour, two. Nothing happened. Patrick could hear footsteps and a voice down the hall, poking its head into each room and warning them visiting hours were over. The boy swallowed and leaned forward, lightly brushing his lips against Pete’s before anyone could see.

He moved to pull away, but his head hit the back of a hand and he opened his eyes to see Pete looking at him, scared but relieved. He was safe now that Patrick was here, coming to rescue him like always. 

Patrick could hear Pete’s breathing, a sound he had never appreciated the beauty of until that moment. How could he have ever taken that for granted?

“Don’t hate me,” Pete whispered desperately.

“Never,” Patrick told him. “Don’t leave me.”

Pete’s bottom lip trembled. “I won’t.”

Neither one of them heard the footsteps in the doorway, the soft sigh, and then the quiet footfalls as the nurse disappeared. They just remained there, foreheads touching, Patrick listening to Pete breathe and Pete starting to feel safe in his skin again. He felt like he’d slept for a hundred years and was just now waking up. Everything would be okay now that Patrick was there.


	19. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "JUSTICE!"

Patrick isn’t as quiet as people think he is, but Pete’s one of the few who knows that. The times that Patrick has been comfortable enough to make a scene were not times that a camera was around, not when friends were nearby. In fact, Pete muses, comfortable was probably the wrong word. Because there’s nothing comfortable about and anger, and anger is what spurred Patrick.

Standing in line at the coffee shop and the guy in front of them is huffing and sighing heavily while a woman tries to hold her squirming two year old and order a coffee. She’s doing the best she can and the guy isn’t even trying at all. Patrick’s hands are clenching into fists and Pete is telling him to just let it go, but he can’t. 

“Are you serious?” Patrick snaps, eyes wide behind his glasses. “She’s doing the best she can. You could just give her some room to breathe for five seconds and maybe pull your head out of your ass. It’s just coffee.”

The guy had been so shocked, he’d just left without any sort of response. The woman had looked at Patrick gratefully, but he’d been staring at the floor, already wishing everyone would stop looking.

Another time a guy had been telling his girlfriend not to buy a shirt because it would make her look fat. Patrick had looked right at her and said, “the problem isn’t the shirt; it’s the asshole looking at it.” Then he had disappeared before he could see how that scenario played out.

And this time it was Pete’s turn. Because Patrick could defend everyone under the sun but himself. And he fucking deserved it. 

“Excuse me, but what the fuck did you just say?” Pete asked, setting his cup down on the table.

Patrick grabbed his arm. “Just let it go, Pete.”

“No, I want him to say it again. Clearly he’s fucking proud of it. He should say it so everyone can fucking hear.”

The beef head smirked and opened his mouth, fully preparing to repeat the insult involving various sexual orientations and Patrick’s mother, but Pete’s hand was already flying and six people jumped in to pull the pair of them apart. Pete was small, but he never stopped moving his fists when he had reason to use them.

On the back porch, Patrick held a towel with ice in it to Pete’s knuckles. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said in a low voice.

“I know.” They kissed and went home and the next day Patrick yelled at someone for verbally abusing their waitress.


	20. Pocahontas

Pete was sitting outside, his feet in the pool. It was dark and none of the lights were on, so the only glow was from the blue of the pool. Patrick watched him for a few minutes, not saying anything, before he sat down behind the other boy, wrapping arms around and him and resting his chin on Pete’s shoulder. “You okay, baby?”

It had been a rough week. Pete had been frustrated with everything and probably something but he wouldn’t tell Patrick the particulars. Instead he had been running fast trying to keep up with something and then crying on the couch when it slipped from his grasp. Today had been spent mostly in tears and Pete had fallen asleep before the food they had ordered for dinner arrived.

Patrick hadn’t heard Pete slip outside. He’d just seen the shadow in the dark when he came out to the kitchen. Now they were both outside and Patrick was preparing for a dismissive response to his question.

Pete took a shaky breath, his feet moving back in the water. “I just … I want to be happy again. Why isn’t anything making me happy like it used to?” 

He sounded miserable and Patrick’s first reaction was to squeeze him tighter and make it better, so much so he didn’t realize he’d actually gotten answer for a few moments. “Oh, baby,” he murmured, lowering his lips to kiss the boy’s shoulder through his hoodie, “you know you can’t go back that. You’ve got to find new ways to be happy, Pete.”

“Why? It worked before. It’s the same thing.”

Lips pressed against the back of Pete’s neck. “But you’re not the same, baby. And we’re not. And life isn’t. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I want it to.”

“Well, that won’t ever change,” Patrick told him with a small smile. “Are you ready to go back in?”

“Will you sing me to sleep? That makes me happy.”

Patrick’s smile got bigger. “I’ll always sing you to sleep, Pete.”


	21. Alice in Wonderland

Pete was running, his feet pounding on the hall, and they were chasing him but he wasn’t going to let them catch him. No. He took a turn and another and he didn’t know his way out now, but as long as they didn’t catch him, he would be okay. He cried out as his body impacted with a door he was fairly certain hadn’t be there before. But that was fucking impossible.

 

He twisted at the handle desperately, but it was locked. He could hear the footsteps starting to catch up with him and he screamed desperately as he pounded against the wood. The skin on his hands started to peel away in flakes and he felt himself sinking through the floor.

Pete woke up alone. He scrambled upright, tearing the blankets away from his body like they were attacking him. He ran to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and then he sank against the tile floor, his head in his hands, trying not to think about what it meant. He knew what it fucking meant.

—

Patrick’s hand ran up and down Pete’s back as they rode to the interview. His voice was soft as he kept saying the same words over and over. Words about how they were fine and Pete was safe and it was only going to be an hour or so and then he could get some sleep. Usually it was Pete who had to say those things to Patrick before interviews. He didn’t like looking up and seeing himself. Strange twisted carnival mirror tricks.

He pushed Patrick away, but the boy just moved closer and kept saying the same thing. Pete wanted to cry and kiss him at the same time. He’d done it before. Lips wet with tears weren’t sexy at all, but that wasn’t really the point.

—

That night Pete woke up from the nightmare in Patrick’s bed. The younger boy helped him strip the covers away, followed him into the bathroom. He kept Pete from falling to the tile and lead him back to the bed. He held him in the dull glow of the city from the window. He stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head and sang.

Finally, he spoke. “You’re not sleeping well, Pete.”

“I keep having a nightmare.”

“The same one?”

“Yeah.”

“It means something then.”

Pete nodded. “I know what it means,” he whispered, letting his fingers trace the design on Patrick’s shirt. “I just can’t fix it.”

“Can’t fix what, Pete?”

“Everything.”

Patrick considered that for a moment while he continued to stroke the other boy’s hair. “I could help,” he said finally, in a small voice, not sure what else to say.

The older boy nodded and let his eyes shut. “You already are.”


	22. Wall-E

Pete shuffled forward quietly and bumped his head against Patrick’s back. The younger boy turned to look at him and held out his hand to accept whatever Pete was holding out to him. It wasn’t much to look at, just a pin for a band Patrick didn’t recognize. But he turned it over in his hands like it was made of gold before he pinned it to his jacket. If it was important to Pete, it was important to him.


	23. Snow White

Pete continued to take poison long after he should have known better. He still trusted people way too easily, let himself believe that the pretty words they were selling him to make him do whatever they wanted were real. Why would someone want to hurt him? What had he ever done to them?

Some mornings he woke up with his head on the toilet lid. Other mornings he woke up in a strange bed hardly able to move his legs. Once he woke up on a bus. He had no idea how he’d gotten there. And he wasn’t entirely sure he’d been sleeping, anyway. Maybe he’d just come to.

Pete tried to push the tears back when he realized he’d been had, yet again, perhaps in more than one sense. He’d try to get on with his life and his day and make it work. They were all counting on him to get through it. It was his fault anyway. He should have known better. 

Should have _listened._

To Patrick.

_“Pete, just don’t, okay? I’ve got a bad feeling about him.”  
“It’ll be fine, ‘Trick. Don’t worry about me.”_

_“Pete, don’t. You remember what happened last time, don’t you?”  
“It won’t happen again.”_

_“Pete, just quit while you’re ahead.”  
“You never win that way.”_

This time Pete woke up in Patrick’s bed, with scratched up knuckles and dull pain in his temples. “Trick?” he whispered.

The younger boy turned to look at him from the foot of the bed, his eyes sad behind his glasses. “How you feeling?”

“What happened?” The last thing Pete remembered was getting dressed for the party. He didn’t even remember leaving the hotel, which was unusual, even for him.

Patrick sighed. “You got in a fight. At the bar. About me.” The last two words were quieter, almost to himself.

“A fight?” Pete asked. “About you?” He racked his brain, trying to remember. And he did seem to see a faint shadow of something but he couldn’t make any details out.

“This guy was being a dick and you sort of … went insane.” 

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You never do, Pete.” Patrick pushed himself up and moved toward the bathroom, signaling the start of the day. “You’ve got to wake up one of these days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all I have ... for now. More will be posted if I get more prompts.


End file.
